Universal Truth: the Importance of Good Explanations

Introduction

As a young child, I remember believing in the fictitious story of Santa Claus based purely on imagination. Every Christmas, my friends, and family would celebrate “Santa” coming from the North Pole to bring presents to all children who behaved well. Eighty-four percent of adults have admitted believing in the famous Santa Claus myth as a child. Eventually, the myths that children take granted as facts are mostly eradicated once the critical evaluation of the concept of “truth” is closely examined. On the basis of a plausible explanation to suggest why or why not a claim is true or not, the claim can be accepted or rejected. In the case of Santa Claus, once children become aware of the fact that their parents are “Santa”, the factual evidence contradicts the explanation for the claim that Santa Claus exists. In this essay, universal truth is discussed based on the knowledge question: Do good explanations result in the production of truth?

Good Explanations and Universal Truth

To establish a conclusive argument for this question, the concepts of “truth” and “good explanations” need to be defined. Truth is generally a vague term to describe an agreed-upon consensus, therefore influenced heavily by social constructs, beliefs, and values in an attempt to make sense of the external world. Simply put, it can be a fact or belief that is accepted as being right. Good explanations, on the other hand, is an ambiguous term through the input of “good”, however, can be defined as a plausible statement to justify certain actions or beliefs. In many cases, good explanations have provided the foundation for a belief to be acknowledged as true by others. In the Natural sciences, truth is often based on experimental data and facts to produce a theory, which is an explanation that is repeated until it can no longer be falsified. Take, for instance, the Big Bang Theory, which explains the origins of the universe based on an expansion event fourteen million years ago, leading to an agreed-upon statement that “the universe is expanding.” Astronomists have, therefore, used a good explanation to produce truth.

Using the same example of the Big Bang theory, it can be concluded that all explanations can be accepted as valid, based on the premise that they follow a coherent and logical argument. In order for the explanation of the Big Bang theory to be accepted as true, the use of reason is used as a tool to conclude that firstly, there is evidence based on mathematical models to show the consistency of the Big Bang with the theory of general relativity and the cosmological principle, stating that “the properties of the universe should be independent of position or orientation.” The observational evidence includes the spectrum of light from galaxies based on Hubble’s law and that the universe is always expanding. Thus, the use of reason allows the explanation of theories based on evidence to conclude that it is, in fact, truth. Reason and sense perception were used to make deductions of the universe to accept an explanation and conclude that it is true and that the universe is in fact, an expanding entity created from the Big Bang of a singularity. In this case, the factual basis of explaining the Big Bang theory led to the conclusion that a good explanation did produce truth.

The human condition, however, naturally allows emotion to play a role in the formation of truth. Emotion is often contradicted to reason, as it is our intuitive and subjective feelings, influenced by our circumstances and conditions. Emotions are largely an inevitable source of instinctual inclination, leading to confirmation bias in some cases. This occurrence limits objective thinking, whereby certain evidence is accepted which confirms pre-existing beliefs and contradicting evidence is rejected, regardless of the truth. Let's consider an example, where the power of emotion can shape our own biases. If we pose the question of how the universe was created, an alternate explanation to the scientific one mentioned earlier could be that God created the universe. From this claim, an explanation could be clearly justified and hence rationalised accordingly. If one were to decide that good explanations must be true, a good explanation could equate to truth, although it could be based on false assumptions without evidence. It can be rationalised through the argument that the phenomenon of the Big Bang was a planned event from a higher power that rules over life on Earth. Adopting this world picture as an answer is another attempt to understand and make sense of certain phenomena. Therefore, a good explanation can be based on religious truth without any sources of empirical evidence. Humans choose to accept it due to the inevitable need to eradicate a sense of uncertainty and gain an understanding of fundamental questions. Through the examples of religious truth, it is evident that a good explanation can, in fact, deviate from truth.

If good explanations can produce truth in two contrasting cases, whereby one form of truth is based on theoretical and observational scientific data produced from experiments and the other on a belief system founded on faith in the supernatural or God, the concept of truth is very broad and encounters the danger of having contradicting truths. The truth examined in the theory of the Big Bang relies primarily on a belief constructed by facts in accordance with reality, thus using reason as a tool to deduce an explanation that illustrates the evidence collected. The truth examined in the theory that God created the universe, however, relies heavily on faith as a way of explaining an answer using a good explanation and not on reason or evidence to produce facts. If both of these cases provided good explanations and the truth produced is objective in one case, while subjective in another, it proves that there is no mutual relationship between them. It questions the nature of truth- can truth be subjective?

If truth is not subjective, should there be a more precise distinction between universal and objective truth? A universal truth is unqualified and finite, while objective truth is based on reason from the observer’s point of view. Universal truth applies to everyone. An example is that the earth rotates around the sun, which is known to apply to all indefinitely, regardless of changes in opinions and perspectives. It is based on reason and sense perception, as we perceive the gravitational pull from the sun to be greater than the gravitational pull from the Earth. Through our senses, we also know that this causes the repetition of night and day cycles for three-hundred and sixty-five days- the number of days it takes for one full revolution of the Earth around the sun.

Conclusion

Therefore, universal truth is true regardless of the quality of the explanation, as a good explanation is inherently subjective. An explanation can be entirely plausible, without producing absolute truth. It can also be true without a good explanation. I could, for instance, say that all humans have a finite lifespan, without using a good explanation, as it is true regardless of how I chose to express it. Thus to conclude, it may be worth answering the knowledge question by re-wording it: true explanations are good ones.